Recently, Laura and Polly were at Walmart when they encountered a family who obviously didn’t know proper protocol when it comes to service animals. The situation was so scary and dangerous – not to mention infuriating – for Laura that she decided to write a letter to the mother in the hope that something like this never happens again.

“Dear fellow mom in Walmart,” she wrote. “I saw you coming down the aisle towards me, your 3 kids in tow, I get it being a mom is hard work sometimes. Your youngest in the cart, your older 2 walking next to you. I could hear you from far away ‘yes look doggy, woof woof!’ Your kids walking faster arms stretched out. They were excited! ‘A DOG! A DOG!’ They called out.”

Usually in situations like this, Laura tries to avoid people who might cause a distraction for Polly, but in this case, she was trapped. She had no choice but to pass the children.

“I was dreading it,” she wrote, “I knew your kids were going to try and pet my dog. I knew you had no intention on telling them ‘don’t pet the dog, it’s working.’

“I tried to put space between me and the people in front of me, so when it was my turn to walk by I could do it quickly, however my attempts to do so failed and I had to slowly walk past you and your kids.”

That’s when something happened that even Laura wasn’t expecting: one of the children reached out and smacked Polly. Laura still remembers the loud thud as the girl’s hand hit the dog’s back.

“My dog is highly trained, so luckily for your daughter the only reaction out of my dog was a tail tuck, and a quick Scurry up in front of me to get away from her,” Laura said.

She looked at the children’s mother and pleaded, “She’s a service dog, please teach your kids not to pet them.”

But instead of apologizing and correcting her children, the mother rudely turned to Laura and jeered, “EXCUSE YOU!”

Laura was stunned.

“Here is what you didn’t see,” she wrote in her letter to the rude mother. “5 minutes before I saw you I got an alert from my dog, my heart rate was steadily climbing, my chest was becoming tight, my vision was going fuzzy, I felt like I was under water.

“You couldn’t tell my hip was sliding in and out of place and every step I took was painful, agonizing. You couldn’t see that your daughter’s actions caused my dog to miss a second alert.

“My heart rate now nearly 120, I felt like I was going to vomit, luckily I made it to my car before the full effects of my heart rate hit me, like a ton of bricks. I almost lost Consciousness. Luckily my kids didn’t have to stand over their mother in the middle of the grocery store waiting for her to wake up.

“Luckily your kids didn’t have to see some woman hit the ground, it can be scary for young kids, and even some adults.